“The head of Yahoo!’s digital music service has called for record labels to allow downloads to be sold free of any DRM restrictions. Dave Goldberg told the Music 2.0 conference in Los Angeles that DRM has created a barrier for consumers between their music and what they can do with it, such as transfer it the portable device of their choice,” Simon Aughton reports for Computer Buyer. “‘There is a cost associated with DRM, and that is lost sales of content,’ he said.”
“What Goldberg did not say was that allowing Yahoo! Music and its rivals to sell unencumbered MP3 files would give them access to the one device that has provided and continues to provide the download market’s dynamic, the iPod,” Aughton reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Nik” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: Yahoo! has entered dreamland in record time; must have been from staring at that spinning-to-a-billion Apple iTunes Music Store counter.
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Related article:
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Never going to happen.
The RIAA wants MORE restriction, not a total free-for-all.
“There is a cost associated with DRM, and that is lost sales of content”
Not for the iTMS… 1 Billion and counting.
I, along with millions of other music buyers like that idea – No restrictions.
But I think it will continue to be “Up against the wall music lovers and show us your papers please” more than ever.
The labels set the prices and limit what’s available on line.
Why is more than one store needed?
It’s never going to happen. Now there’s a precedent for DRM, the RIAA and MPAA are never going to go to unprotected file.
http://www.nikfletcher.com
not going to happen those people are greedy fat men & women ( not that I know they are fat, lol just an assumption because they must be sleeping with piles of money that they have raped the artists from!!).
mw= very As in “not going to happen those people are VERY greedy fat men & women” lol
I don’t see what’s wrong with this suggestion. I’d love for there to be no DRM on my music, but admittedly, I’ve never run into a DRM restriction using iTunes. It is nice however to be able to buy music from another source and put them into iTunes without any hassle (other than CD’s).
If you like independent music, I suggest http://www.eMusic.com. Over the last couple years, the amount of music I’ve purchased through them is more than twice what I’ve purchased thought iTunes and in some instances has saved me money beacuse the same song was on iTunes for 99cents, where through eMusic it costs much less through their monthly purchase plan.
Just don’t expect most of the popular artists to be on there.
I’d argue for no DRM. But the music industry typically wants more restrictions not less. If they could get it so songs would destroy themselves after five or ten plays, they would.
Any record exec will tell you that DRM is essential. But they don’t know what to make of the situation in the UK with the Arctic Monkeys. This band encouraged fans to distribute their music on-line free of charge. As a result they built a massive fan base and their debut CD recently broke all records for debut CD sales. They’re now one of the biggest success stories in the UK
The fascinating thing is that they built their success on the very opposite of DRM.
iTunes would have sold TWO bil without DRM.
But nothing can make the RIAA agree to that, not Yahoo and not Apple.
Until the RIAA’s power has washed away. It’s starting to happen!
Devil’s advocate to AlanAudio: freebies making for a big intro? That’s more like a special promotion situation, it doesn’t say anything about long-term success. Giving away a band’s first album by P2P may be a great move to get a band known–but after that? This example doesn’t cover the that question.
I want there to be no DRM, however, I realise it ain’t gonna happen – and to a certain extent I sympathise with content providers because I do feel there would be abuse if they just opened it all up. Yahoo’s statement is obviously just stemming from the fact that they’re failing so badly. No-one wants the players you have to have to use them and even if they do the actual music services aren’t any good.
The interesting thing about the whole iTunes thing is that it’s one of the few markets where the market leader is leading based upon quality of service/product as opposed to just being cheapest. Other companies don’t know how to handle that, they’re used to cutting costs to cut prices and then earning more money as a result. Spending more on research in order to get a better product to in turn earn more is totally foreign to them.
No DRM! No DRM! No DRM! No DRM!
Won’t happen, you know, because that would make it easy for future wireless MP3-players to “beam” music from one person to the other. “Hey, you want to listen to this? I’ll just beam it over to you.” And then that other person wouldn’t have the rights.
I’m gonna say something crazy. If Yahoo was allowed to sell DRM-free music and iTunes wasn’t, most people would keep buying from iTunes.
Why? Because most people don’t even encounter the DRM. Something that is not even a slight inconvenience is no incentive for leaving a service that works for you.
(Of course, if Yahoo did get DRM-free music, iTunes would demand it as well. iTunes would then EXPLODE in popularity, wiping all competitors off the face of the Earth like a nuke.)
Yahoo! has a mere $5 a month subscription charge for over 1 million songs.
Each song costs 79¢ if you want to keep it.
Of course if your poor this sounds like a great deal, but of course the poor are clever and have cracked the M$ DRM by ripping off the sound card so there isn’t very many full price downloads.
Then once the folks have milked the cow and filled their hard drives full of Mp3’s, they cancel their subscription and go to iTunes.
Why?
Because Apple gets all the latest music right away. And the reason for that is Apple doesn’t do subscriptions and that appeals to artists.
Of course the iPod factor has a lot to do with as well.
So the trick is this.
Buy a cheap PC and a large hard drive.
Sign up for Yahoo service and download like crazy.
Use the ripper software and convert copy protected music into high quality Mp3’s.
After a month or two quit Yahoo.
Transfer Mp3’s to your Mac/iTunes and iPod.
Any new music from artists, just pay the 99¢.
You save thousands even tens of thousands of dollars.
Develop a network of friends and swap cd’s.
Subscriptions fail because you can’t depend upon copy protection working for very long.
Haha, just wait until Trusted Computing goes into full swing.
RIAA – “Lockdown the Mactels now or we pull our content.”
Apple – “Ok”
RIAA – “Sell these DRM headsets or we pull or content”
Apple -“But they look ugly”
RIAA – “Just do it”
Apple – “Ok, your da boss, need your laundry done?”
I highly doubt that Apple would have sold 2 billion without DRM.
I’ve never purchased a single song from iTunes because 128kbps music files are far too low of sound quality to spend my money upon. Period.
Apple’s DRM is quite liberal. I have no problem with that. But 128kbps? No thanks.
I have never encountered DRM restrictions in my use if iTunes music store purchases and I believe most people wouldn’t. It is a stretch to say that they are restrictive. I guess the only tenable scenario is people who want to sell their iPod for another device.
Either way, if DRM got slashed then I do think that the iTMS would loose some market share. People like Yahoo et al would do periods of discounts which would draw people in knowing the music was iPod compatible. Why pay more for the same thing? Apple would have to permanently discount their music to compete. There isn’t enought left in the margins for them to do this long term without making a loss.
As it stands DRM is helping Apple, even though it was the RIAA who forced its use.
Tim Coughlin
http://timcoughlin.typepad.com
“to sell unencumbered MP3 files”
How about DRM free MP4 files? (otherwise known as AAC)
Time for those old MP3 players to be upgraded to MP4 like the iPod!
Yahoo has figured out what it needs to compete.
If the labels got rid of DRM, that would put Apple in a pickle, for consumer pressure would then force them to get rid of Fairplay on music, which would end the tight tie between the iPod and iTMS.
The iPod would still dominate but iTMS would now be on equal footing with the other download stores with regards to pricing, catalog, etc. For now, only Apple can say to labels/artists that if you sell on iTMS, you have a market of 42+ million iPods out there plus all the Macs and PCs. Without DRM, every music store can say the same thing (except for the Mac part).
So the labels are stuck between DRM and Apple. Let’s see which they think is the greater evil!
“Either way, if DRM got slashed then I do think that the iTMS would loose some market share. People like Yahoo et al would do periods of discounts which would draw people in knowing the music was iPod compatible. Why pay more for the same thing? Apple would have to permanently discount their music to compete. There isn’t enought left in the margins for them to do this long term without making a loss.”
Exactly, right now people are “locked” into iTunes/iPod due to DRM. If DRM was lifted it would be, literally, a free for all. People would still use iTunes to synch with thier iPod. However, music could be downloaded anywhere and tranferred onto anything.
However, the removal of DRM would also most likely kill WMP since it is no longer needed. Apple would still sit pretty due to its massive hardware sales of the iPod.
MW “approach”. The RIAA will approach this with caution.
Yahoo has figured out that their system does not compete and Apple is winning the Revolutionary War.
Stripping DRM off is like giving the tunes away up front. No record company is going fot that.
This whole article is a waste of time. Sorry Yahoo, Napster, Real, MS, Samsung…. y’all are LOSERS.
Of course it could be an interesting twist for the labels to ditch DRM. It may be the only way they could break the stranglehold Apple has on the market currently with the iTMS. Still no great immediate worry to Apple as they will have their iPod market intact as Mark says above.
I imagine that long term however, loyalty to the iTMS is more important to Apple even than the iPod. Imagine that with their sales having topped 1 billion in the last few years, this still only stands at around 5% of total music sales. And with further markets to consider, namely video and ebooks, it is critical for Apple for the iTMS itself to remain dominant if they are to maintain their position and the distributor of all major media. This is where the vast sums of money will be had in the end.
Tim Coughlin
Apple should join in this call for no DRM — see what happpens.
Here’s some thoughts on the theme “Information wants to be free” (move freely)
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.03/economy.ideas.html
I love apple, I love iTunes, I love my iPod and I like the iTMS, but if yahoo actually got DRM free music I would head over there in a heartbeat. As DRM gets more entranched in everything the only way to stop it is to tell content providers that we don’t want it and we’ll get our content from the source with the fewest restrictions.
Ars technica regularly has articles about the issue of DRM and where it is going. It’s scary to think of how much control they want over their content. Ars position, and I agree, is that they arent piling on DRM to stop piracy, people can and will get around it and once one copy of something is DRM free there’s no putting it back, but rather it is to ensure that just because you have the DVD doesn’t mean you can play it on your psp or iPod or computer. The conent industry thinks people will buy multiple copies of the same thing to be able to do what they want with the content they buy. I’m hoping they are wrong and it causes enough of a slow down in sales that they give up on that policy.
a hugely succesful DRM-free music store would show that is what consumers want.